Cavalry Charge: An Overview of Cavalry and the Battle on the Marchfeld

Good morning gamers,

We're beginning a new series of formations articles dedicated to the use of cavalry. Some factions in the game don't have access to cavalry natively in their lists (though Forces of Good factions can ally in Elven cavalry pretty easily with Haldir + Galadhrim Knights, Legolas + Mirkwood Cavalry, or Elrond + Rivendell Knights), and many factions that do have access to cavalry also have good infantry options. For a long time, I left cavalry at home, relying on the greater weight of numbers I could get from infantry spams instead of getting some/a lot of cavalry (perhaps that explains why I love Khazad-Dum so much). Perhaps you've felt this desire too.

Some factions can be competitive without cavalry - Goblin-town and the Assault Upon Helm's Deep LL chief among them. Some factions can legitimately run "all cavalry" (or very, VERY heavy on cavalry) and do well - Rohan (whether it's the Riders of Theoden LL or a vanilla hodge-podge list) and some very edge-case Erebor Reclaimed lists chief among those. For most armies, though, getting a few cavalry into your army is quite beneficial for handling objective/travel missions or for swinging a flank in favor of your infantry - but this has sparked a question in my mind (and I would guess in the minds of other players as well): what exactly does having cavalry do for me - and how do I use them effectively? If you've found yourself asking this question, let's take a look at what you can do with cavalry in MESBG - and use a rather important battle in history to showcase the benefits (and limitations of cavalry).

The Battle on the Marchfeld

For those interested in learning more about this battle, I highly recommend the Baz Battles video on the subject - their stuff is really good. By 1278, heavy cavalry were a dominant force in central Europe - the Mongols had already invaded Europe, sweeping in with a mix of light, skirmish cavalry as well as heavy lancer cavalry. In the Holy Roman Empire, German heavy cavalry (especially in Bohemia and Bavaria) were some of the most elite cavalry in the world, completely covered in plate heavy mail armor and dealing devastating damage on the charge with lances or hand weapons. The next door neighbor of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, still relied on skirmish cavalry.

During the mid 1200s, the King of Bohemia, Ottokar the II, had both gained territory south of Bohemia and lost it when the newly-elected Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph I claimed the lands for the Imperial throne. What followed was a clash between Ottokar's forces (heavy cavalry) and the joint allied forces of the Holy Roman Emperor (heavy cavalry) and some allied forces from Hungary (skirmish cavalry).

The battle began with the Hungarian horse archers harassing the heavy knights of the Bohemians. The Bohemian ranks suffered little damage, but their morale was reduced by the assault. Both lines of heavy knights charged into each other and began a bloody battle. A few hours into the melee, a (rather dishonorable and unchivalrous) counter-attack was launched by Rudolph's forces, hitting one flank of Ottokar's line and causing a panic. As the Bohemian ranks began to break, the Hungarian light cavalry swept in to assist in killing those in retreat.

Cavalry in MESBG

We've said this before in these historical formations posts: MESBG doesn't perfectly mirror reality. Today we'll be covering some of the key distinctions between what is accurate and what isn't and we begin our discussion with the different kinds of cavalry we have in the game. I did a taxonomy on cavalry a while ago when I started our Bare Necessities series (though I've modified my list slightly to account for some of the notes in the comments) - MESBG features the following cavalry classes:

• "Faux-Cavalry" (things like Wild Wargs and Giant Spiders that aren't ACTUALLY cavalry but have high movement values and large bases);
• Skirmish Cavalry (cavalry models who have ranged weapons - sometimes innately, sometimes by choice);
• Heavy Cavalry (cavalry with D6+ riders - and sometimes D5+ mounts);
• Shock Cavalry (cavalry with bonuses to their wounding rolls, usually with a lance or war spear); and
• Monstrous Cavalry (a fast monster that has Monstrous Charge - most of which are not actually cavalry models). 

These groupings are not mutually exclusive, though: while there are cavalry units that only appear in one category (Serpent Riders are Shock Cavalry only, while Easterling Kataphrakts are Heavy Cavalry only), some heavy cavalry are also shock cavalry (Knights of Minas Tirith and Iron Hills Goat Riders), while some heavy cavalry are also skirmish cavalry (like Galadhrim Knights) - and some cavalry are heavy cavalry, shock cavalry, AND skirmish cavalry (like Rivendell Knights). Oh, and some Faux-Cavalry are Monstrous Cavalry (like Shelob or the Spider Queen). But each of these different types of cavalry performs a different role in your army.

Skirmish Cavalry: Kiting and Keep-Away

The most iconic skirmish cavalry in the game - and the guys I spent most of my COVID quarantine months painting . . .

If we start with Skirmish Cavalry, these guys have a simple job: shoot things while on horseback. Moving and shooting in MESBG applies a -1 penalty to your Shoot Value, which means that, in general, you'll hit with fewer arrows/throwing weapons if you "scoot-and-shoot" than if you stand still. The addition of the mount, however, means that a cavalry model that moves up to half of its movement and fires a bow will be moving at about the same pace as your stock-standard infantry moving on foot. Since a lot of scenarios reward you for positioning somewhere on the board, moving and shooting is part of the life of a good skirmish cavalry model (unless the scenario doesn't require you to go anywhere, of course).

Where most skirmish cavalry gain their rewards is if they have throwing weapons or some kind of rule that allows them to move their full distance and STILL shoot that turn. A Rider of Rohan with his normal gear of bow and shield can move 5" each turn and shoot, but your average 6" move infantry will be gaining on him each turn that he shoots. If a Rider of Rohan has been equipped with throwing spears as well, the Rider of Rohan can now move his full 10" (possibly 15" if benefitting from a Heroic March) and still shoot - and this time, with a S3 throwing spear instead of a S2 bow.

These cavalry usually want nothing to do with large blocks of high-Defense infantry, since they aren't that likely to wound their targets (18 Riders of Rohan deal an expected 1 Wound/turn to D6 models), but if they can get the numbers about even, a skirmish cavalry model on the charge can deal a devastating charge and mop up whoever is left (true to the Battle of the Marchfeld). This leads to our first rule for the effective use of cavalry:

Rule #1: Keep Your Skirmish Cavalry On The Periphery

Skirmish Cavalry can be used to make lighter infantry take a longer path to an objective, discourage a flanking attack, or even force auric heroes and models carrying banners to seek cover/cause a battle line to shift. All of this gives you some control over how your opponent plays the game and if you can use this to your advantage, the actual damage your cavalry inflict can be less important than the tactical benefits their threat can provide. If you have a large body of troops to deal with, however, you're usually better off using heavy cavalry (who can take a pinch) and/or shock cavalry (who can deal a punch) instead of skirmish cavalry.

Heavy/Shock Cavalry: Charge And Route

Knights of Minas Tirith are some of the most cost effective shock cavalry in the game 

Shock cavalry are usually S3-4 and usually have a lance or war spear that gives them +1 To Wound on the turn that they've charged. This means you're usually looking at 5s To Wound, and since you double your dice when you knock Infantry models over, you're quite likely to kill at last one model that you charge. Heroes who happen to be shock cavalry can often kill 2+ models when they charge - they're usually limited by how many models are actually in base contact with them instead of the number of Attacks they have. While charging a shieldwall head-on can still be a death sentence to cavalry (you want to charge the flanks - something we'll talk about next time), shock cavalry that win their fights are likely to punch big holes in the enemy ranks and can turn the tide very quickly if left unchecked.

Heavy cavalry who aren't shock cavalry (like Eastering Kataphrakts or Rohan Royal Guards) can still be deadly to enemy infantry shieldwalls, since they can be very hard to wound if they lose the fight. Some shock cavalry aren't heavy cavalry (like Mahud Raiders or Serpent Riders) and when they lose fights, they can die pretty quickly - but if a D6 Kataphrakt or Royal Guard charges in (to say nothing of a D8 Rider of the Dead!), there's a good chance that guy's walking away with his life when the dice are all cast (perhaps without his horse, but he'll probably be okay). This leads to our second principle of using cavalry:

Rule #2: Give Your Shock/Heavy Cavalry Lanes to Charge - Then Manage Their Match-Ups

It doesn't help you very much if you charge your shock cavalry into positions they can't win - so we manage their match-ups by making sure there are infantry blocks supporting them, pulling off enemy supporting models, and drawing attention away from the key pieces we need. This is very similar to the advice I gave on using Trolls - support them with infantry blocks so they don't get overwhelmed. We'll get into how to do this later in this series, but for now, know that "just charging in" is usually a good way to lose a cavalry charge. Speaking of bad things to do, let's see what we need to think about when we're not fighting infantry . . .

Cavalry vs. Cavalry: You Get (And Don't Get) What You Pay For

What do you do when you don't get any of your charge bonuses?

Everything we've talked about before, though, has to do with cavalry actually charging infantry - and if you were to take anything about the effectiveness of cavalry, you should draw the following conclusions:

Rule #3: Charging Infantry With Any Cavalry Is Good

Rule #4: Charging Cavalry With Good Cavalry Is Good

So what happens if you find that the enemy has cavalry too - whether it be a mirror-match between two Rohan armies (maybe two Riders of Theoden Legendary Legions) or facing someone who's taken a different approach to running a cavalry faction? For this, we have a few things we should know.

First and foremost, when you're in a cavalry-versus-cavalry situation, paying for quality matters. In this respect, the Battle on the Marchfeld seems to be reflective of MESBG truth. On the whole, models like Morgul Knights (18pts/model) or Knights of Dol Amroth (20pts/model) look like overkill compared to any of their innate cheaper cavalry options (like Warg Riders, 12-13pts/model) or their allied cavalry options (like Knights of Minas Tirith, usually 14pts/model). If you're charging into infantry, being F4/D6 with D5 mounts (Knights of Dol Amroth/Morgul Knights) has advantages over being F3/D4-6 with D4 mounts (Warg Riders/Knights of Minas Tirith), but if you've got 2 dice to a F4+ infantry's 1 die, you have a nearly even chance of killing the guy even if you have a lower Fight Value just because you're rolling more dice than him.

But what happens if you don't get your Extra Attack and Knock Down special rules, either because you've charged a cavalry model or been charged by a cavalry model? When that happens, being F3 with 1 Attack instead of F4 with 1 Attack makes a huge different. And if you're only going to get 1 die to try to wound the other guy, your cavalry model suddenly becomes a lot less effective.

Additionally, it helps to have the charge if you have a lance. This shouldn't be surprising, but it does bear mentioning: while most of the benefits of charging will be negated by fighting cavalry, the +1 To Wound benefit of charging with a lance still applies - and it can make all the difference for your cavalry (either because you killed the enemy rider OR because you took out his mount). Yes, you do have to be on the charge to benefit from it, but a few kills with a lance can shift the entire tempo of a flank (especially if there's a hero with lance involved).

While lances are certainly the most common way of increasing your damage (even against other cavalry models), some models rely on having above-average Strength (like S4 Warg Riders or models with the Rohan army bonus), access to Piercing Strike (though this is a double-edged sword), or special rules that affect their wounding difficulties (such as Aragorn's Anduril or Azog's I Am the Master). However you increase your damage, you can get an edge over whoever you're fighting by making it more likely that a victory in the duel for you means your opponent is down a model on the following round.

Third, skirmish cavalry can be incredibly dangerous to other cavalry. Most cavalry have exactly one answer to enemy shooting attacks that hit their mounts: Horselord. If a hero is willing to risk a Fate point (usually his ONLY Fate point) to protect his mount, Horselord can help a mounted model keep the benefits of his mount longer - but always at his own vulnerability increasing. Warriors don't have Fate points (and consequently, don't have Horselord), so shooting out their mounts can be absolutely devastating to their effectiveness (and could lead to them falling out of the saddle and breaking their necks). If you have throwing spears and can take a swing at an enemy cavalry squad before they get a chance to charge you, life can be absolutely miserable. And if they can take out the horse of a big hero, good luck catching those guys or getting anywhere near the use out of these guys as you'd want.

To showcase how dangerous those skirmish cavalry can be against other cavalry, we can look at a game I played recently: here at TMAT, we're going through a Fantasy Fellowship campaign and in about a month, I'll have an update for you guys on how my Fellowship did in the Warg Attack scenario from War in Rohan. This scenario features all-mounted models (well, Hama starts on the ground) and because of the Arise, Riders of Theoden! rule on the Riders of Rohan and a scenario special rule for the Evil models (Surprise Attack), both sides get +1 Fight Value when they charge (everyone except the Good heroes, that is). You'd think you'd want to do what both forces do in the films.

But what ACTUALLY works far better is for the Forces of Good is to play the avoidance game, since they're trying to keep evil from killing 3 heroes within 12 turns - and since the Warg Riders don't come back when they die, any models they can dismount with archery become much, MUCH easier to kill. Sure, you only have 6 Riders of Rohan and 6 heroes to fight off 20 evil models, but since both sides are going to be staggering onto the board, even a little archery can make your opponent struggle to get their full force into the fight quickly. Yes, you need to make sure Hama and Gamling make it out alive (or hopefully at least one of them), but if you can stay away and take away their mounts, riding down Orcs who can't support each other . . . well, it isn't hard at all.

But this highlights something: since both sides CAN use shooting to affect the enemy's cavalry (the Good shooting is more reliable, the Evil shooting is more voluminous), both sides CAN use their skirmish abilities to give themselves an edge (and for Evil, that includes a cheeky threat to the enemy heroes and force them to engage). All told, skirmish cavalry can give you an edge over other cavalry, if for no other reason than you can harass them into cover to protect their horses - but if they get charged with a lance or high Strength, they can be absolutely torn to shreds (true to the Battle on the Marchfeld too).

Conclusion

This post was just a topical overview of cavalry in MESBG - and it's not as rock-paper-scissors as you might think. Next month, we'll be looking at one of Centaur's go-to approaches to using fast models (be they cavalry, dogs, or Uruk-Hai Marauders) - and learn some principles for how to get the most out of those glorious cavalry charges. Until next time, happy hobbying!